Tl;dr / if you don’t have Economist access - the reasons they give for this shift are: it’s easier for manufacturers to pass on costs with bigger cars; there are fewer good small electric cars anyway, and electric is becoming increasingly important given forthcoming climate policies; modern booster seat regulations have pushed families towards larger cars; and people have more money nowadays so tend to buy bigger cars.
I don’t think we’ll ever end up in a US situation though given how our towns and cities are designed. I hugely value having a small B-segment car (e.g. Fiesta/Polo/Fabia/Yaris) for parking in London and don’t think I could see myself going larger than a C-segment (e.g. Focus/Golf/Octavia/Corolla) in the future unless I moved fully out of London.
It’s mainly because of emission standards. Those require extra technology that serves up the cost. That makes smaller cars more expensive and this it’s attractive. This will change, once batteries become cheaper. Putting together a small EV is much easier and you don’t have to worry about emissions. We will see that within the next five years or so.
This is interesting:
I wonder why. Are young people not buying cars anymore?
The shift towards bigger cars has been noted as a Europe-wide phenomenon, albeit we’re nowhere near the US scenario where a Ford 150 pickup truck is the best-selling car: https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/06/21/a-farewell-to-small-cars-the-industrial-icons-that-put-europe-on-wheels
Tl;dr / if you don’t have Economist access - the reasons they give for this shift are: it’s easier for manufacturers to pass on costs with bigger cars; there are fewer good small electric cars anyway, and electric is becoming increasingly important given forthcoming climate policies; modern booster seat regulations have pushed families towards larger cars; and people have more money nowadays so tend to buy bigger cars.
I don’t think we’ll ever end up in a US situation though given how our towns and cities are designed. I hugely value having a small B-segment car (e.g. Fiesta/Polo/Fabia/Yaris) for parking in London and don’t think I could see myself going larger than a C-segment (e.g. Focus/Golf/Octavia/Corolla) in the future unless I moved fully out of London.
I think the key is “not much margin” - they just aren’t making enough profit and presumably don’t want to put the price up.
Rather, they already have put the prices up as high as the market is willing to bear.
They likely are - there likely never was much margin in them.
The reason manufacturers are pushing SUVs so hard is that they are cheap to build but can be sold at premium prices.
I’m from the Netherlands but buying a new car here.is crazy. It’s so much more than buying second hand. I think lease cars are most of the new models.
It’s mainly because of emission standards. Those require extra technology that serves up the cost. That makes smaller cars more expensive and this it’s attractive. This will change, once batteries become cheaper. Putting together a small EV is much easier and you don’t have to worry about emissions. We will see that within the next five years or so.
While that def increases cost. Safety standards have much more to do with it. As these also make a huge difference to size and weight of cars.
Corporate greed.